Style Icon I: Robert Taylor

The naked ape has heaved himself out of his pipe-smoking chair, decided that Pope was right and the proper study of mankind is man, and made his way to the old film annuals, where there lurk some style icons of the past of the kind that Hollywood just does not produce anymore. "First up" (since he was American), is Robert Taylor (1911-1969). Early films included Camille, opposite Greta Garbo and A Yank at Oxford, opposite Vivien Leigh; although his most memorable film is Quo Vadis, with Deborah Kerr. Married for some years to Barbara Stanwyck, they shared a large ranch at Brentwood, LA.

It is, to my mind, a pity that most youngsters these days want to look, at worst like a beatnik's ghost (I acknowledge a member's moniker on filmnoirbuff.com) and, at best, David Beckham.